Pillar of Salt
by cellotlix
Summary: Before Vancouver burned under the Reaper's gaze, the man's name was David Alenko, and hers was Kathryn. Their son's, Kaidan. Here, in this wild, burning place, they were only man and woman – stripped bare as skin. Here in this wasteland, they had only a purpose to sustain them: find the resistance. Mass Effect 3 through the eyes on Earth.


**AN: I decided to write Kaidan's parents' story when I started working on A Bright and Broken Sword. But because elements of this story come up in A Very Long Engagement, I decided to write it all out as a stand alone one shot, because I'm not sure when I'll finish A Bright and Broken Sword. **

**This is probably the darkest and most depressing thing I've ever written.  
**

_"Mom?"_

_"Kaidan? What is it?"_

_"I need you and Dad to get out, just like we talked about, okay?"_

_"Is something going on?"_

_"I think so. We don't know exactly what, yet, but it's big. Just . . . trust me."_

_"Of course, Kaidan." A pause. "Are you getting out too?"_

_"As soon as the orders come in. Don't worry about me, all right? I'll contact you when I can."_

_"Okay. I love you."_

_"I love you too. Tell Dad . . ." A pause. "Just get out of here."_

* * *

In the distance, Vancouver burned. Bright explosions dotted the skyline, flashing through the curtain of smoke and fire. At this distance it would have been hard to hear the screaming of those about to die mingled with the shriek of the Reapers, but the woman felt them just the same; deep in her bones, the way you hear thunder in the distance.

There were only two: a man and a woman moving quickly through the brush and forest. The man held the woman's hand tightly as they weaved through the wild. His strong jaw was bowstring tight, a muscle twitching there. His thick black hair was liberally streaked with grey and his brown eyes narrowed in furious concentration. There was old scar running through his eyebrow, that slim hairless place, like a pale thread stitched to skin. Though older, he was strong and fast – military in his younger years.

The woman, on the other hand, was inexperienced; beautiful and winsome and soft. Her husband viewed the scene with the numb grit that had been conditioned in him throughout his career in the Alliance, but she could not keep from turning back every few paces.

In Vancouver, the man's name was David Alenko, and hers was Kathryn. Their son's, Kaidan. Here, in this wild, burning place, they were only man and woman – stripped bare as skin.

She could not keep from watching their home amid the flames, the place they'd lived for years now, a place of safety and friends – probably all dead and gone, now. The place where they'd raised their son. Their son . . .

She pressed a shaking hand to her mouth to stifle a sob. She thought herself a monster, then. Oh, she was able to look back at their burning home and dying friends with acceptable numbness, but the moment her thoughts drifted to her son she lost whatever tenuous grasp on control she had cobbled together. She slowed, her heels digging into the soil.

"Come on," David told her. "We have to keep moving."

She swallowed. "Do you think he made it?"

David didn't say anything for a moment. "I don't know."

"He's – he was at the Alliance headquarters. Do you think- oh my god."

"Don't think about it, Kathryn," David told her, firmly. "We need to keep running."

"He must have been able to make it out," she insisted stubbornly, desperately. "He must have."

He looked as if he wanted to point out that statistically, it was unlikely; there had been many ships that had been shot out of the sky in their desperate bid for survival. But he looked at his wife's wide-eyed expression, her trembling lips and reconsidered. "You're right," he said, though he didn't believe it.

"He knew," she said tearfully. "He knew what was coming. He – he must have . . . he took time out of his own preparations to warn us." She broke down. "Oh, god . . ."

He was not comfortable with overt displays of comfort or affection, not even for his wife who he loved above everything. But even a blinded man could see that her sorrow was his own pain, obvious as it was in the creasing of his suddenly raw eyes. He held her hand tighter in his own.

"Come on," David said again. "He gave us a chance to get away. Let's not waste it, hey?"

She rubbed her eyes and nodded, and together they pushed forward into the wild. But she could not stop herself from looking back at the skyline of her home, now a ravaged inferno. She could not keep from looking back and wondering if her son had made it out of that beloved hell, her son who was nearly a mirror image of her husband, one smudged with age and hurt.

* * *

They cowered in the trees that first night. They no longer heard the chattering of nocturnal animals, only the faint sound of Reapers screaming and hissing, running rampant through their city like an infection.

David pulled her up onto a wide branch and wrapped his arms around her, so tightly that she couldn't breathe at first. She felt his heart beating against her back, felt him press a kiss into her hair. She felt his service pistol digging against her hip. He told her to try and sleep if she could because they had farther to go the next day. But she watched the bright spot through the trees instead, the place where her home and son had been in a brighter time.

She thought of her garden, her kitchen. David's ancient recliner, which had practically worn a groove from the many years he'd used it; a steady footprint or proof, perhaps, that they'd lived. She thought of the flames consuming, devouring, the screams of the dying.

* * *

After their exodus from Vancouver, she gathered what she could from the roads and abandoned homes while the man scouted. There was always a gun in his hands, though they were lucky enough not to need them in those first days.

When they fled their home, he had strapped all of his weapons to his body – the old Avenger assault rifle, a Carnifex hand cannon, two military issue talons, and a heavily modified Viper sniper rifle. In his days as an Alliance soldier, he had been one of the most highly decorated marksman to serve, with over three dozen special commendations in his file. Even though he'd been retired for many years, he staunchly maintained his skills, always citing a future need.

Well, here was their future need.

They discussed their plan to survive at length; it had become such a contentious debate that it began to poison all other considerations. He wanted to keep to the northern wilderness, since he estimated the Reaper forces were less likely to find them there, but she could not bear the thought of wandering homeless for however many years it would take to win this war. There were others like them, she insisted. They would be more likely to survive in a group.

"I don't think so," he said, pursing his lips.

"Why not?"

He shifted in place, gaze darting away. "It just gives me a weird feeling. Like . . . that's what they want, you know? They'd want us all to shore up and huddle together; it would make us faster and easier to kill."

"We can't stay this far north," she argued. "I don't know how to survive winter in the wild. Do you?"

"You know I've been hunting-"

"It's not the same," she argued.

He fell silent. "I guess it isn't."

"I think we should go south. East and south. Even if we stick to the wilderness, the weather's easier to handle south."

"There's not as much wilderness in the old States," he said slowly. "Less room to hide."

"Well, you know what I think. I'll leave it to you."

She had technically given him permission to decide, but they both knew it was an invitation to see things her way. They'd been married for forty-two years; these things were as comfortable between them as an old sweater or a much loved pair of shoes.

"All right," he said finally. "South and east. Keeping to the wilderness for now."

So in that manner, their tragic fate was decided; by the woman's stubbornness, and the man's inability to upset his wife.

* * *

In the second week after the Reapers came, they stumbled upon another group of survivors. They had been keeping to the wilderness – the better to avoid the roving bands of husks that infested the cities – so it made some sense that they would eventually find others who had gotten the same idea.

The group was comprised of a newlywed couple, a woman with two small children in tow, and an older man who surveyed the scene with grizzled experience. "Hold," he called to his followers before fixing them with a searching look. "Your names, now," he called to them.

"My name is David Alenko, and this is my wife, Kathryn." He wiped his brow with the back of his hand. "What direction you headed?"

"South and east. There's talk of a resistance forming in those parts."

"Hm." She knew her husband did not love the plan they had hammered out days ago, but the prospect of uniting with others who knew their way around guns and strategy had some logical appeal. "Can you spare the room for two more?"

The man didn't seem thrilled with the idea, but he acquiesced after a moment. "Sure. My name is Carl, and these are my companions. We'll share our route if you can keep up."

She watched her husband nod curtly, the muscles in his jaw twitching. As the little party set off in a southeasterly direction once more, his hand wrapped around her own, holding it tightly.

* * *

Before Kaidan had left for BAaT, they'd taken one final camping trip north. David was the only one who ever appreciated them – Kaidan preferred to study, and while Kathryn loved being outside, she was afraid of the larger wildlife that sometimes mauled hikers and campers. David assured her that was not likely to happen to them, but his words had not been enough to chase away the fear, and so after Kaidan left home, they never went again.

Now that the world had ended and they were reduced to camping every night, foraging and hunting for food, and eking out shelter as they made their slow way south, Kathryn found that she regretted her earlier fear. Perhaps she'd make an easier adjustment to this life if she'd had more practice.

For his part, David acclimated like the expert he was. He and Carl planned their routes with military precision, and while Carl was not military himself, he had a very keen and cunning mind. He admitted to being a hunter before the Reapers had come, and the practice scouting through the wilderness served them all quite well.

There were eight of them; all refugees, all pieces of a broken whole. There was Daniel and Anna, the newlyweds who had escaped Vancouver the day the Reapers had come, and who had seen their parents and siblings burned alive by a Reaper blast. There was Lynne and her two small children, Jeff and Jamie. When asked about the father, Lynne would bow her head and hold her shaking hand to her eyes, and in that manner Kathryn knew – he had been lost.

As for the hunter named Carl; they knew nothing of what happened to him, only that he refused to speak of it.

That first night, David pulled her into his arms without words, and she felt him shaking, the tender weight of him trembling like a leaf in a storm. He didn't have to say a word. She knew that he was thinking of the fact that she could have easily been lost – that they both could have been, if their son hadn't warned them.

Their beautiful son, who might be dead for all they knew.

She pressed her face into his jacket and cried.

* * *

They passed over the border of the Old States after a few weeks of moving on foot. David whispered to her that they might have made better time if they had not been traveling with very young children, who could only manage a few miles before they needed to stop and rest. But Kathryn shushed him. The alternative was monstrous.

Daniel had been an engineer before the world ended, and after a few days he managed to find a working radio signal, where the human resistance broadcast their plans and movements.

"_This is Admiral David Anderson, calling out to any who are picking up this frequency," _the radio blared. Her husband perked with interest, leaning closer to the filthy radio.

"Anderson, huh?" he said in a low voice.

"You know him?" Daniel asked.

"He's an old friend, back when I wasn't retired," David answered. "A good man."

"_Avoid metropolitan areas if you are able; as of this time the Reapers are focusing their efforts on the highest concentration of human population. Move in groups and stick together. If you are in desperate need of supplies, do not go to any cities or military bases, because the Reapers will be waiting for you there. Make do with what you can pick up in rural areas. However, there are resistances and military presences in the cities of Chicago, London, Moscow, Berlin, and Singapore at this time. If you have a gun and able body, or are seeking refuge in numbers, these will be the places to rally." _Anderson cleared his throat. "_Keep the hope alive, people. Commander Shepard is coming, and she's bringing every fleet in the galaxy with her."_

The broadcast faded to static, and the eight of them were left in silence.

"Nothing we didn't already know," Carl muttered to himself.

Daniel looked up to her husband, his eyes wide. It struck Kathryn how young he seemed – even younger than their own son. (Though she often had to remind herself that Kaidan was not such a young man anymore). "Do you think she's really coming?"

"Shepard?" her husband asked, rubbing the back of his neck absently. "I don't know."

"She is," Kathryn cut in. "I know she is. She and my son, Kaidan. They're coming for us all."

Daniel's eyes seemed to go even wider, and the young twins sidled as close as they could until they were nearly pressed against her side. "You know Commander Shepard?" Daniel breathed.

"My son knows her," Kathryn said, suppressing a smile. The truth was that they were more than just acquaintances. They had served with one another nearly three years ago, bringing down the rogue Spectre named Saren. They had been in love. They had decided to marry when Shepard was killed, though two years later she had come back, reconstructed by Cerberus.

It had been difficult to prod Kaidan into speaking of the woman he loved, and she knew that there was still a gap between them. Her son was a highly principled man – just the same as his father – and Shepard's defection to Cerberus had hit him very hard.

"What's she like?" Daniel asked her, and the little twins scooted so close that they were nearly sitting on her lap, grabbing folds of her shirt and yanking.

"What do you want, you silly geese?" Kathryn asked, attempting to be stern, though her lips twitched.

"Tell us about the Shepard," Jeff begged in a high, clear voice.

"Please!" Jamie echoed.

"It's just 'Shepard'," Kathryn corrected. "I've never met her, myself."

"But you said – but you said your son knows her," Jeff wheedled. "You have to know _something."_

"You know something!" Jamie echoed, bouncing up and down and yanking her shirt so hard she worried it would tear.

"Here, now! Calm down. This is the only shirt I have," she admonished. "I'll tell you what I know, okay?"

"Yay!" the twins chorused, jumping around her, and she had to actively corral them to her side once again. It was nice, to have small children around again, and god knew Lynne could use a break. It reminded her that she was growing old, and that every day that passed, she feared that she would never know what it was to have a grandchild – a joy that many of her friends had known years ago.

Though, now . . .

Kathryn cleared her throat and sat the twins on her lap, searching her memory for everything Kaidan had told her about the woman he loved. "Once upon a time, there was a hero named Commander Shepard."

"That's not her real name," Jamie said, blinking owlishly. "She has a name like us."

"And she didn't start out a hero, did she?" said Jeff, the little skeptic.

Kathryn smiled; so much for trying to make it a fairy tale. "Yes, you're quite right. Once upon a time, there was a young girl named Samantha Shepard. She was born not so long ago on a spaceship, and she grew up among the stars. She learned the ways of space, and it was many years before she learned what the feel of earth beneath her feet was like.

"She lived on the ship with her mother, who was a Captain of the Alliance. Little Shepard grew up to be as strong and stubborn as her mother, and one day she decided that she wanted to join the Alliance.

"She never thought she would be a hero; all she wanted was to do her best and help people. And that's what she did. She got so good at helping people that she grew famous, and people would ask for her by name and follow the details of her life like she was a character in a story rather than a flesh and blood woman."

"Elysium!" Jeff howled. "Tell us about Elysium!"

"That's a scary part," Kathryn warned. "Are you sure?"

The twins nodded desperately.

"Only four years after she joined the Alliance, she was stationed on a peaceful remote colony, one of humanity's most important. And one day, the colony was attacked by batarians. Shepard's entire unit was killed, but Shepard survived. Not only did she survive, but she held the entire offense back, and when reinforcements came, they were amazed. One lone woman had saved the colony single-handedly. One woman had made the difference between life and death for those colonists."

"And that's how Shepard became a hero," Jamie said solemnly.

"Yes. And from that day, the entire galaxy knew Shepard's name. They called for her when Saren and his geth attacked, and with the help of her allies, she defeated him and saved the Citadel."

"With your son," Jeff said knowingly.

"Yes. You know the rest, don't you?"

The twins spoke at the same time, though each had a different train of thought – Jeff preferred logical details, such as how Shepard came to live again after she'd been killed, while Jamie liked to speculate on how she must have felt, how Kaidan must have felt, how everyone felt to have Shepard back.

"She's going to save us," Jamie said, nuzzling closer to her.

"Yes," Kathryn said. "She is."

Long after the twins went to sleep, she reconciled the story to the woman, and the many ways in which Sam Shepard was only flesh and blood. For the children, she would say any manner of things to keep the hope alive, but in her most secret of hearts, she had begun to doubt. Shepard was one woman. Whatever her strength and courage, there was only so much a person could do alone.

* * *

Months passed without incident, for which Kathryn was thankful. They trekked on foot until they passed through Montana and into South Dakota, at which point they were lucky enough to find an old abandoned transport that fit their entire party. David had voted against using it – it would make them much more conspicuous – but Carl had overruled him. If they were going to make it to the resistance in the ruins of Chicago, they needed to start making better time.

"Besides," Carl said easily, shouldering his rifle and rubbing his stubbly face with his other hand. "This thing is a tank." He patted the reinforced riveted metal of the transport, grinning. "Those Cannibals and husks'll have to work pretty hard to get through this thing."

David had not approved, but in the end he was outvoted. The little boys were tired of walking everywhere, Lynne was at her breaking point, often dissolving into panicked tears when she wasn't muttering to herself, and Anna often complained loudly about having to walk everywhere, bemoaning that they couldn't find a city and bunker down there.

"It's almost like she doesn't understand the world has ended," David groused to Kathryn one night, well after everyone else had fallen asleep.

"She's young," Kathryn whispered back. "She had a whole life to live."

"As if Lynne doesn't? As if Daniel doesn't?"

"I didn't say she was right," she said gently. "I'm just saying I understand."

David hadn't approved then, and he did not approve now. They filed into the transport before Carl swung into the front, poking at the controls. Luckily, only a few repairs were necessary, and they were easily managed by Daniel. There was enough fuel to get them to Iowa, Carl calculated, at which point they would have to make the rest of the trek on foot again.

Jeff and Jamie were thrilled. "We're going so fast!" Jeff howled gleefully. "I always wanted to do this again."

"Shh," Kathryn said gently. "Remember what we said about making too much noise?"

He pressed his lips together, covering them with his hands. "Sorry, Gamma."

The twins had started calling her Gamma Lenko. Lynne had apologized profusely when Jamie said it the first time, her thin lips pale as she stuttered an apology, but Kathryn had smiled and taken her hand and told her that it was just fine that they called her Gamma. She kept these thoughts away from even her husband, but she hadn't heard from Kaidan since those first days, and she feared the worst. She feared that the only experience she would have as a grandmother would be a surrogate one. But she saw that those little boys needed her, and if she was being honest with herself, she needed them too.

"What happened to your Gamma?" Kathryn had asked them once, a few weeks back.

"She got blasted with Daddy," Jeff said quietly, and behind him, Jamie started to cry.

* * *

As they rode east, they were careful to keep away from major cities. The Anderson's regular broadcasts warned of Reaper movements on each continent, and therefore they were able to adjust their route to avoid major roads and known Reaper infestations. But the further they went, the fewer survivors they saw.

"Where are all the people?" Jamie asked, his lip quivering.

"Gone," Daniel said, pushing his glasses up his nose. "They left."

"Or they're dead," Anna said bitterly.

Jamie's glassy eyes widened before he burst into terrified, hiccupping tears. Jeff slung his arm around his brother's narrow little shoulder. "You didn't have to say that," he said, glaring up at Anna. "That was mean."

"It's the truth," Anna said flippantly.

It startled her to hear her husband speak, as he had kept silent for so long during their trek east, often only speaking to her. "What the hell is wrong with you?" he snarled. "They're just little boys!"

"They're old enough to know what's really going on," Anna snapped. "You want to wrap them all up and plug their ears, so they won't even hear it when the Reapers come and kill us all! I say they get nice and cozy with our lot, because it's shit!"

"That's enough, Anna," Kathryn said quietly.

But something seemed to have broken in Anna; she spun on them all with wide and fierce eyes. "No! No it's not!" she fired back, her chest heaving. "I'm done! I've had it, tiptoeing around these little brats, trying to make this nice and easy for them when every day I have to wash their clothes and make their food and break their camp. I'm done!"

"We all do those things," Kathryn said neutrally.

"She doesn't!" Anna snapped, pointing a vicious finger at Lynne, who huddled in the corner of the transport and rocked back and forth, murmuring to herself.

"Does she look like she's in any condition to help?" David demanded, his brows a thick line over livid eyes.

"You think she's actually lost it?" Anna shouted. "She's playing you all for fools, just because she doesn't like the way we live, because it wasn't like the little vacation she wanted!"

"You're the one who hasn't considered what this life is like," David retorted. "Did you expect hot food every night? A feather bed? You're living the reality right now. It's care for the group, or go off on your own and get shredded by the Reapers."

"Now, just a minute – " Daniel began, his hands held out in placation, but his wife cut over him furiously.

"You'd kick us out? After everything?"

"I'm not kicking anyone out!" David shouted. "I'm telling you how it is. This isn't a pleasure cruise. This isn't a vacation. This is survival. It involves teamwork and sacrifice. If you can't handle that, there's lots of nice and open land for you to make your stand."

Anna crossed her arms over her thin chest, her lips pressed together in a thin line. The force of her anger was nearly a physical thing, but she said no more.

With one last furious look at Anna, her husband gathered up the weeping boy in his arms, stroking his hair just as she'd seen him do for Kaidan when he was still young. And the sight of it was so resonant for her – her shy, reticent husband with a child, a boy so like their own – that she had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from weeping, the taste of blood bitter and sweet on her tongue.

There were no stories that night.

* * *

They'd just passed into Iowa when a blast shook the ground from under the transport, the sound of it quickly followed by a half-dozen blaring alarms. Carl pounded furiously on the console, but David grabbed the scruff of his jacket and yanked him out of the transport just as it caught on fire.

"Shit!" Carl cursed, throwing his cap to the ground. "God damn it!"

"It was bound to happen eventually," David said, patting him on the back.

"Boy! Can't you fix this?"

Daniel wiped his smudged glasses on his pants, though the gesture was futile. "It's fried," he said simply. "I'd need parts to get that thing moving again."

"God damn it," Carl hissed.

"Keep it down, hey?" David said, casting a practiced eye around the burned out wilderness. "We're on foot again. Need to be careful about giving our position away."

Kathryn saw something break in Carl's eyes, a shattered window raining glass on the pane. In the beginning, he had been the official leader – guiding them from place to place, happily providing his expertise on matters, and the rest had followed willingly. But as the weeks turned into bleak months, the group gravitated toward David, who was soft-spoken and reticent, but obviously much more skilled. He'd been military for decades. He was the one who caught their food and prepared it. He was the one that deciphered the military jargon and code in Anderson's broadcasts, pointing out the best ways forward. Without Carl's permission, David had become the voice of authority.

"Whatever you say, army," Carl muttered.

David's eyes narrowed, but ignored the barb. "Let's go," he said, drawing his rifle.

* * *

They were lucky, they told themselves. They only saw Reapers. The Reapers did not see them. David would point out a band of roving husks in the distance, drawing his sniper rifle and following their progress as they loped and snarled and fed on the corpses of those who had died months ago.

One by one, he would pick them off. She watched the powerful muscles in his back as he breathed in, his keen eyes following the progress of enemies almost too far in the distance to be seen. When the Reapers had been killed, he'd look up to her first, and she never missed the beautiful relief that blossomed over his features as he met her gaze.

She loved her husband in a new way as she watched him. She saw the man he had been many years ago – the decorated Alliance serviceman, the hero. She saw in him a reflection of their son.

* * *

Night fell, and they made camp a few miles east of some ruined farmland east of the ruins of Des Moines. David, Daniel, and Carl had swept the ruins for husks or survivors, but none were to be found. Only then did her husband pronounce the barn safe for the night.

He and Daniel fiddled with the radio while Kathryn tucked in the twins, stroking their downy heads until they fell into troubled sleep. Anna cleaned the dishes with a foul grimace, but ever since her confrontation weeks ago with David, she never said a word, not even to her own husband. Carl guarded the door in an old chair, his legs propped up against the wall, fiddling with the safety on his gun.

Daniel kept the volume low, but she listened with every muscle in her body. Anderson's voice filled the barn, every few words fuzzing over a bit of interference, but despite it he kept his voice calm and clear.

"_We have news from the front," _Anderson said. _"Commander Shepard and her crew have secured the alliances of every major government in the galaxy, each commanding hundreds of thousands of ships. She was last seen leaving Rannoch, with the combined might of the geth and quarian fleets at her rear. _

"_Weeks ago, Commander Shepard and Major Alenko – the first two human Spectres in the galaxy - prevented the terrorist group Cerberus from taking over the Citadel. Now they work tirelessly to move these fleets to Earth. It won't be long until they arrive. So I need you survivors to keep the faith. Anderson out."_

For a moment, she couldn't speak or think or do anything other than gape at her husband, who stared at her with equal surprise. "He's alive," David said finally. "He's alive."

She burst into tears. "My son," she sobbed, over and over again. "My brave son."

David folded her into his arms, stroking her hair, and the scar threaded through his eyebrow caught the low firelight, so that it almost seemed to shine. For that one, beautiful moment, they were the only two people alive in the world – indeed, she felt as if they were given a new life, a new hope. Their son had survived. He'd made it off Earth, where now he worked with the woman he loved to gather every ally they could. Suddenly, it was no longer impossible to see each other again, to be a family again. Suddenly, her mind was filled with thoughts of finally meeting the woman he loved, the wedding she knew would happen, the family whole again.

"He's a Spectre now," David breathed. "Did you hear that? He's a hero."

She dissolved into fresh sobs. "Every bit his father's son," she cried, her hands fisting in his shirt.

It took her a moment to realize that her husband was trembling as badly as she was, and when he pulled away, the neck of her shirt was wet with tears.

* * *

She woke to screams.

She bolted upright, her heart pounding furiously in her throat. The twins were crying, clinging to each other as Daniel struggled to keep them quiet. She saw Carl and Anna grab their pistols and head for the door. She saw her husband draw his rifle and check the clip before sprinting after them. She saw –

"Where's Lynne?!" she gasped.

There was another scream outside the barn, and in that instant Kathryn knew.

She pulled the boys quickly to her chest so that they wouldn't hear, but it was far too late. The screams dissolved into feral howling before it was cut off by a deafening snap. Another sound – hissing, heavy feet striking the dirt, and then the sound of gunfire.

"Jesus Christ," Daniel whispered, and he fisted his hands over his ears. "Jesus fucking Christ."

"Shh," she urged him, and her voice sounded far away.

Without another word, Daniel vomited as the sound of claws ripping through flesh filled the room.

She waited with the children and Daniel, stroking their heads, rubbing their backs, wiping their tears. She waited as the sounds grew louder, the different colors of screams – feral hissing of husks mingling with the shouts of her allies, her beloved, beautiful husband, who was so weak compared to a Reaper, so mortal, made of flesh and blood and bone –

And then it was silent once again.

She watched for the door, and her heart twisted in her chest when she saw that only three figures returned.

"What happened?" she whispered, though the sick pit in her gut told her all she needed to know.

Carl shook his head. "Lynne got herself killed."

She watched her husband round on the hunter, his hands balling into fists, and for a moment she feared that David would haul off and knock Carl's head straight off. "You were on watch tonight," he said in a low, deadly voice. "Why didn't you keep her from wandering off?"

"I went out to take a piss!" Carl retorted. "I didn't hear her sneak out!"

"You should have called for one of us to take over!" David roared. "A woman is dead because of you!"

The boys dissolved into heart-rending sobs. "Mama . . ." they wailed in unison, clutching each other. "Mama . . ."

Kathryn held the boys to her chest and bit her trembling lip, the fury blooming in her stomach like a perverse kind of flower. "You have blood on your hands, Carl," she hissed. "Your negligence cost a woman her life."

"And what kind of life was it, huh?" Carl retorted. "She was off her rocker, mumbling and rocking back and forth, spitting up her food. It was only a matter of time until something like this happened!"

"That wasn't your call to make!" David shouted.

"How about you fucking keep it down, army?" Carl snapped. "Don't want the husks to come calling again."

For one, thrilling moment, she thought David really was going to smash his fist into Carl's face and leave the man crumpled on the floor like the slime he was, writhing in pain as blood bubbled from his nose. But David only shook his head. "Life is wasted on you," he said before shouldering past him and out in the daylight, and the words crashed down around them all – the slam of a judge's gavel.

* * *

It no longer mattered that Shepard and Kaidan were coming with the fleets at their back. Their party had been sundered by the loss of Lynne.

In her own way, Kathryn grieved for the woman she'd met that day – already fractured, already breaking, halfway lost to madness. She grieved for the woman she'd never know; the wife, the mother, the daughter of Jeff and Jamie's real Gamma.

David led them east, over the border of Iowa into Illinois, and he never let his wife or the twins out of his sight for one minute. Daniel trailed behind like a lost dog, but Carl and Anna formed their own party; nearly separated, yet still poisonous as a gangrenous limb. She would catch Anna's dark looks from across the campfire, and every night before she went to sleep, she would hear Carl's teeth grinding, the scraping of bones of a dead surface, a man who might as well have been dead already.

* * *

They lost Anna and Daniel next.

The closer to Chicago they came, the more husks and cannibals they had to fight through. They stopped one day to replenish their supplies at an abandoned fuel station – raiding the stores for water and food and whatever thermal clips they could find – when they heard the tell-tale scream of approaching husks.

Kathryn pulled the boys to her and hid under the counter, yanking Daniel behind her so hard that he slipped and stumbled, crashing to the ground, his glasses shattering on the filthy floor.

She'd grown used to the sound of battle. She knew what her husband sounded like when fired – the distinctive sound of his gun, the total accuracy in which he killed. Carl wasn't better than her husband, but he was efficient, taking down whatever Reaper forces he can with the clips they have.

But Anna was a wild shot. Though her eye was good, she did not have decades of experience coiled in her hands, making each shot more like a preternatural instinct than one of calculated aim.

"Get the fuck down!" she heard Carl shout, and there was a note of distinct panic in his voice. Was it her husband, or was it – and the answering scream came not long after.

"Anna!" Daniel shouted when he heard his wife cry out, when he heard the crunch of bone, the shattering of skin, the sound of a heart pumping blood out an open wound. The sound of his wife dying. He threw himself over the counter and ran out into the street, stumbling over a pile of detritus.

"Daniel, come back!" Kathryn shouted, but it was in vain. Perhaps he'd forgotten he'd lost his glasses. Perhaps all he heard were the dying screams of his wife – the woman he'd married for better or worse. Perhaps he'd decided that he would rather die than live a life without her. It was horrific, but it was a decision Kathryn could understand.

"Daniel, get back inside!" she heard David scream.

But when she poked her head over the counter, she saw Daniel grab the pistol out of his dead wife's hands, the grip of it slick with her blood. She saw something break in his eyes, a kind of shattering, a madness she recognized from Lynne. She saw that young man take off running, firing blindly in the direction of the husks, splattering a few but not enough – god, not enough.

She saw the husks rip him limb from limb.

"God damn it!" David shouted. He mopped up the rest of the husks with absurd ease, and it struck her that if only Daniel had waited – if only Anna had waited too, perhaps they would still be alive.

Her husband strode back into the blasted fuel station, his dark, grey-threaded hair spattered with blood, a tendril of it tracing a path down his face. She saw many things from that moment from far away - her husband taking the boys by the hand and leading them out of the station, beckoning for her to follow. She saw the pattern of the floor beneath her feet.

She saw blood, and limbs without their owner. She saw a head she recognized, a flash of blonde hair, a tattered piece of cloth that had been Anna's or Daniel's or someone's. The world spun, and she saw no more after that.

* * *

She woke to the feel of David's hand on her brow, the touch of his skin so tender against hers. For one moment, she felt as if they were back in Vancouver and she was waking up from a terrible dream to start the day, filled with chores and work and tending her garden, a call from Kaidan perhaps, a quiet dinner with David, the feel of him against her later when all was finished –

The memories came back, then. She lived in burned out wasteland, in a different hole every night, slowly making their way east. She held the hands of two little boys who had no family, and watched the shape of a hunter she did not trust. She heard the screams of Lynne being devoured, and the sight of Daniel being torn apart limb from limb. She closed her eyes.

"My Katy," David whispered, stroking her cheek. "Oh, my darling."

"I'm so sorry," she breathed. "I – what happened?"

"We're safe, for now," he said. "We're in an old shed, some old farmland. I carried you."

"The boys?"

"They're sleeping."

"Carl?"

"He left," David said. "I don't know where. Said he'd do better on his own."

She pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes. "I – I saw Daniel –"

"Shh," David said, pulling her closer. "Don't think about it."

She quieted, and there was a part of her that felt monstrous for taking comfort in anything when young men died and Reapers roamed the earth, when half the galaxy away, her son threw himself into the fire time and time again for their sakes. Her eyes filled with tears. "I don't know what else to think about."

David stroked her hair, quiet for a moment. "Remember the day we married?"

"No."

"Yes you do," he said, kissing her hair.

And she did remember. "My father didn't like you," she whispered in the night. "He was angry the whole day. He thought your tendency toward silence made you untrustworthy. 'Never know that that Alenko boy is thinking' he'd say over and over. But . . . he was happy when I was happy."

"I remember seeing you for the first time, when you came down the aisle," David said. "You were the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen in my life."

"Were?" she whispered.

"Were and are." He kissed her again. "What else do you remember?"

"You looked so much like Kaidan does – like he will, when he gets married. It's always fascinated me how alike you two are. You stood there in your dress blues and fidgeted and stuttered, but when it came to our vows, you said them perfectly. You just looked at me, and you said them perfectly."

"I forgot anyone else was there," he said as if in a dream, as if at that moment he lived in that beautiful, bright memory. "I only saw you."

"Hm."

"What else do you remember?"

She considered for a quiet moment, lulled by the sound of the twins sleeping. "I remember the day Kaidan was born. November 5th, 2151. You were off on assignment somewhere – can't remember that part."

"Mars," he said, running his hands through her hair.

"I was alone, I remember that part. I was afraid you wouldn't make it in time."

"But I did."

"But you did. Just barely." She sighed. "He was a beautiful boy. I knew he'd look like you, even then."

David was quiet. "I wish I'd been better to him."

"What?"

"I – I never was good with him. I was good at being a soldier. I was good at following orders. And every day I'd look down at his little face and . . . well, I'd panic a little. I wanted to do right by him, and I don't think I ever did."

"Of course you did," she said fervently. "Look at him now. A Major in the Alliance, a Spectre for the Council! He's one of the biggest heroes in the Alliance, and he sure didn't learn that from me."

"He learned some of it from you," David smiled. "He got your way with people."

"He got your bravery."

"He got your eyes."

"He got your principles."

He smirked. "He did, didn't he?"

She stroked the stubble on his cheek. "He got all the best things of you. And I look at him, and I'm so proud to be his mother. So proud to have had a part in him."

"I am, too."

"When he gets here with Commander Shepard and the rest of the fleets and saves the Earth from the Reapers, I'm going to hug him for ten years. And I'm going to hug Shepard. And I'm going to make those silly children get married and give me lots of grandchildren."

He laughed, and though it was quiet, she savored the sound of it, so much like music – a sound she hadn't heard in so long. "Maybe give them a little time, first?"

"There's no time like the present." She was quiet for a moment. "These months have taught me that."

He pressed a kiss to her temple, his hands running up the side of her face. "My darling."

They said nothing for a long time, so that when she finally spoke again, he startled a bit. "I've been like Lot's wife," she whispered sleepily.

"What?"

"I've been like that woman in the Bible. She looks behind her and gets turned into a pillar of salt, because she couldn't let go of everything that was hers. Her home, her family, her friends. She would rather look at them one more time than go the rest of her life without even being able to remember them."

"You have your memories," David told her gently. "No one will hold those against you."

"I could have been better," she murmured as she balanced on the edge of sleep. "I could have been better to Lynne, to Anna and Daniel. Those little boys. If I hadn't been so wrapped up in my old life. My memories."

"Shh," he soothed, stroking her hair.

The last thing she saw before she succumbed to sleep was that woman from the Bible – Lot's wife, resplendent in furs and silks, the cloth of her dress weaving in the soft wind. She followed her husband's footsteps, and this time she followed closely enough to keep him. This time she chose the dim future over bitter memory.

* * *

Another week passed into dust. The children said nothing anymore, not even when she tried to prod them out of their silence with stories and songs. They were two grim statues that kept to her shadow, clutching her jacket. Not even little Jamie could be roused; his tears had frozen into salt tracks on his little face.

"Mama's left us," he said dully when she asked how he was. "Mama left us."

Jeff took his twin's hand, but not even that could comfort him. It was as if he had died too.

But they were close. She saw the ruined skyline of Chicago in the distance when David passed his sniper rifle to her, the scope adjusted to compensate for the extreme distance. "Not long now," he said. "That is, if there's anyone left."

"There isn't," Jeff said. "No one is left."

"Come on, boys," she said, but not even a false smile could keep the trembling out of her voice. "They're deep underground, so the Reapers won't get them."

"They got eaten," Jamie said. "Like Mama. Or blasted like Daddy." His little lip trembled. "We're the only ones left."

* * *

That night the four of them crowded around the radio as they ate dinner, keeping the volume low as they could manage and still hear the words. Kathryn thought it would be good for the boys to hear that they weren't alone, and that their heroes were still out there, a little closer to their wasteland every day.

"_The fleets are on their way to Earth. Tomorrow, Admiral Hackett and Commander Shepard lead the combined fleets of the galaxy to take back Earth from the Reapers. Stay close, stay safe. The end is here."_

"Hear that?" David asked the children. "Commander Shepard is almost here."

Jamie blinked. "And – and your son, too?"

"Yes, Kaidan too. They're coming for us."

"And – the Reapers will go away?"

"Before you know it."

Jamie cuddled closer to David. "Can we stay with you when it's over?" he asked in a small voice. "After the Reapers leave? We don't have anyone else."

They hadn't spoken about this, but she and her husband shared a wordless moment of communication – a technique perfected from when they raised their own son – and in that moment it was decided. "Of course you can," David said gently. "You don't have to worry. Gamma Lenko and I won't leave you."

Jeff hugged her closely. "We knew you wouldn't. You're the only ones who stayed."

"Not like Mama," Jamie said darkly.

"Not like Mama," Jeff echoed.

And she nearly wept for these small children who had been forced by cruel circumstance to become like men in the span of a few months – no longer giggling boys, fighting over their favorite TV program or who got to play with which toy. When she looked in her eyes, she saw something that was nearly ancient, and terrifying to behold.

That night, the twins cuddled into her side and fell asleep, but even though the hours became long, she remained awake. She watched the shadow of her husband outside, keeping careful watch, vigilant for shadows and sharp things in the darkness.

* * *

She woke to a sound she'd come to recognize better than her son's voice – the snarling of husks, loping up the street to the burned out house where they hid. Much too close, already upon them, loping up the back steps.

"Wake up!" David hissed, shaking the boys awake. "We need to move!"

"The camp –" she began.

"Leave it!"

The four of them tore out of the house, spinning, searching for an empty direction. God, her joints ached these days, but she forced herself to run despite the pain, for there were husks at their heels, and the boys needed them to move.

David urged them up an empty street, but the husks were gaining. She saw those lipless mouths gnashing against flesh, those lidless eyes staring, cutting through the darkness, malevolent and fierce. She saw the corpses in each burned out city pass under her eyes like a montage – a cautionary tale should she falter and lose her step.

"Run!" David urged the boys, but they were fading – dear god, they were fading. She could nearly feel the breath of the husks on the back of her neck, their reaching grasping claws, razor sharp teeth perfect for rending flesh –

One moment, Jamie's hand was in hers. The next, it was gone. "NO!" she howled, and she nearly stopped to snatch up the boy even though he'd already been taken, already been absorbed into the teeming mass of the husks. There was bile, thick at her throat; blood, roaring in her ears. She saw without seeing; a flash of red, a sick crunch –

"Don't stop!" David screamed.

His hand was around her wrist, Jeff's piteous sobbing in her ears. And – god help her –she ran. She thought of the pillar of salt – the salty warm blood, salty flesh rent by unfeeling claws if she turned back now, but she ran. She ran, though at times she felt she would die.

Kaidan had been a little boy, once.

* * *

David shoved her into an empty building, and she pulled Jeff along though she fought her – he struggled against her arms, nearly feral now. "You let him go!" he howled, thrashing, gnashing his teeth. "You let him fall!"

"I'm sorry," she sobbed. "I'm so sorry. I –"

"YOU LET HIM DIE!"

Jeff shoved his little hands into her chest with more force that she expected from such a young child, and she sprawled into a pile of debris. She saw David struggle to capture the furious, flailing child in his arms – the little boy, so young, so weak, easy to catch, easy for a cruel husk to eat –

- and then he was gone, sprinting off into the darkness, his arms wind-milling as he pushed himself faster and faster. He was going in the wrong direction, she knew, running with his head down to gain speed, running straight into the thick band of husks that churned there like one entity – a wall of bloody, slick teeth gleaming in the odd light that had come over the Earth.

"God damn it," David whispered brokenly.

"I let them die!" she whispered, clutching him. "I let – I let them – they're gone. Just like him, just like our Kaidan. I let them die!"

"Shh," he soothed, and she heard his voice shaking so hard that she feared it would break. "Come on."

Kaidan had been like them, once. Knobby knees, bright eyes, bright blood. So easily hurt.

* * *

They did not get far. The husks and cannibals cut them off nearly every turn they made, and because David was almost run out of thermal clips, they were quickly running out of options. They could see the skyscrapers of Chicago without the aid of his rifle scope now, but there wasn't much good it would do.

The resistance, she'd said. Go south and east for the resistance. If only she'd known that it would cost them the lives of their entire party. If only she'd stayed north, like David wanted. The cold, barren wilderness, the trees that were eternal – that would stand up to the Reapers, that would hide them, shield them, protect them.

* * *

She knew it was the end when David stopped running.

He looked over his shoulder at the cannibals advancing mindlessly. They were cut off – trapped on all sides by the Reaper advance. She knew it when she caught sight of his eyes – the broken resignation there.

"We're going to bunker down," he said quietly, taking her hand and pulling her into a crumbling ruin, half the ceiling blown away by some previous battle. "We're going to wait it out."

"For the end."

"Yes," he said through white lips.

He passed her his pistol and loaded his assault rifle with the last thermal clip they had. He pulled her into his side and held her tightly, so that when she closed her eyes and shut her ears, she could almost pretend she was back home in Vancouver with a roast in the oven, the TV blaring the news, David in his armchair with a beer in hand, Kaidan at his side, Shepard sitting in between them both – that smile she remembered from the pictures on her face –

Her husband pressed a kiss into her hair. "I love you," he told her. "I always have, you know that?"

"Even when you first saw me?"

"Yes," he said to her. "All those years ago."

She took his hand. "I loved you the first time I heard you speak."

"What did I say?"

"You said 'Do you like this song?' And I knew that I loved you."

"Kind of a stupid question."

"You were brave, when it mattered. Even though you sell yourself short."

"I could have been better," he said, shaking so hard that it felt to her as if the earth was moving under them. "I never deserved you."

"Yes you did," she whispered, so quietly that the sound of the cannibals drowned out their voices. "You know you did."

"My Katy," he said, his voice a caress, a kiss, the last beautiful sound in this wasted world.

"I love—" she said, but the words never fully formed, never fully took shape and flew. She heard the sound of cannons blasting, missiles sailing through the air, a whistling she nearly didn't recognize, and in the last moment before the darkness took her, she knew that it was not a Reaper that had fired, for she would know the Alliance's colors anywhere.

* * *

_She wakes to fire, and blood._

_She gropes in the darkness for something to drape about her shoulders, but there is nothing but a cold murky darkness that looks back at her like a piercing, malicious eye. She is a stranger to the world._

_She opens her eyes. _

_There is blood on her hands, blood in her eyes. She touches the side of her head, and her fingers brush a sticky wetness, crusted on her face like a mask, a barrier between her and this loud, confusing place. She doesn't know it, but she's glad for it._

_She pushes herself up amidst the rubble, and it's then that she realizes she's not alone. There is a man lying beside her, half covered by detritus, his dark head an odd shape. She turns him over with a strange feeling she doesn't recognize – not the blankness of murky depth, but a struggle to place something. Does he know his name? Does he know hers?_

_But the man is dead. _

_He's covered with burns, and most of his bones are broken. Through the haze of blood, she sees a silver thread that cuts through his eyebrow, and realizes it's bare skin, marking the place of a scar._

_She leaves the man behind and wanders in the darkness. She is alone. Though sound comes to her, it seems to travel a great distance. She doesn't understand the noises – only that they are far away._

_Her foot catches on some rubble and she sprawls to the ground. There are open wounds on her hands now, and she feels the sharp edge of pain there. She doesn't like it. She picks herself up and resumes her wandering._

_She doesn't know where she is, or where she's going. She doesn't know anything, and she's scared. In the distance, there are loud bangs and flashes of light, and they dance before her eyes, mingled and taunting. These sounds and lights she doesn't know, these dark portents._

_On the horizon, she sees something; hears voices rising and falling in a way that she recognizes. It's the first thing she knows in this bloody place. _

_The voices come to her, even though she trudges to them. "Can you hear me?" they ask. "Can you hear anything?"_

_She blinks, struggling for a response, struggling through the murk._

"_Can you understand me?" the voices ask her._

"_Yes," she finally says, though her voice sounds strange to her ears, slurred and broken._

"_Massive head-trauma," one of the voices says to another, a slim man in a white coat. The others wear clothes the color of rubble. "Do you know what your name is?" _

_She thinks that perhaps if she struggles hard enough she will find that word, but the longer she stands there without speaking, the more her head begins to hurt. She sways, the world spinning before her eyes – this dark and grey place. Perhaps she should know the answer to this question – likely there are a lot of questions she used to know the answers to – but now that she is awake they have flown out of her reach. She strains for them, cries for them, but they elude her. _

_And this is her life, she supposes. This grey and dark place. This pillar of salt. _

"_No," she says finally. _


End file.
